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general freedom property rights

And So It Begins

“Your time is up, white people,” South African politician Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi offered.

This woman, who belongs to the Economic Freedom Fighters, a “far left” political party, is defending something Frédéric Bastiat would have dubbed the very worst kind of “legal plunder”: in this case, a land grab from white farmers to give to (some) blacks, without compensation.

“White South Africans could be forced to give up their own homes from next year as the nation’s government steamrolls through plans for land expropriation,” Zoie O’Brien reports for Britain’s Daily Mail. Why? Well, “over claims ‘Africa’s original sin’ must be reversed.”

There will be no reversal, of course. Not of “Africa’s original sin,” which, I dare suggest, mischaracterizes the problems of South Africa.

And yes, I know, it is complicated, since “many in the nation see the move as retribution.” For past white supremacist racial policies.

But justice simply cannot be two wrongs. For what is happening in South Africa is the gearing up for a mass crime. 

They call it “land reform,” of course. Lots of tragedies begin that way. Ask the people of the country formerly called Rhodesia

I’ve referred to South Africa’s gross dysfunction before. There appears to be an instinctive media downplaying of this matter, largely because of past racism and the “white people bad” mentality now too common.

Your time is up, white people. Racism. Sure. (No point in just calling it “reverse racism.”) A crime against the owners of property. The wrong way to address problems, surely.

And ominous, for rarely does an enormity like this stop just there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi

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crime and punishment general freedom media and media people moral hazard too much government

Governments Gone Wilding

I was late to the story, and had a hard time finding information on the anti-white violence in South Africa — farm families raped, pillaged, slaughtered, beheaded.

And I wasn’t at all aware of the “land reform” that South Africa’s Congress is voting on, the explicit aim of which is to expropriate white farmers without compensation.

Every day, I read through The Washington Post but noticed no articles there. Or elsewhere — until a fleeting Facebook post sent me to Lauren Southern’s video documentary, “Farmlands.”

The Wall Street Journal did cover the farm expropriation story — on its editorial pages. “No country ever became rich through its government’s seizure of private property (exhibit A: the Soviet Union), but politicians in South Africa want to give it another go.”

Zimbabwe on repeat.

Worse yet, it is being argued for on racial grounds, and some of its proponents are notoriously . . . genocidal?

Quartz takes a different approach, in an article charmingly titled “South Africa’s much needed land debate is being turned into an international racist rant.” The Leftwing publication appears to be gearing up to defend mass theft as “land reform,” heedless of its long, violent, destructive history.

Meanwhile, Ms. Southern, the “gonzo journalist” who detailed the ongoing race-based murder spree in South Africa* that Quartz failed to mention, found herself detained in Calais, France, prevented from entering Britain. Why? In part for “being racist.”

Southern had once engaged in a stunt pitching the provocation that “Allah is a gay god” — to seek reactions from people after a major news source produced an article claiming Jesus was gay.

Islam is a religion, not a race, of course, but it’s racial collectivism that still unhinges minds.

To what extent? Socialist expropriation, at least.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* “According to the best available statistics,” the BBC relates, “farm murders are at their highest level since 2010-11.


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by Paul Jacob initiative, referendum, and recall video

Video: Paul Jacob on Nelson Mandela and Peaceful Change

This was recorded a few weeks ago, before the death of Nelson Mandela: